There was a point towards the end of the first half of Sunday's game when the penalty count was 9-1 in Georgia's favour. England's decision to run from deep in their own half proved hazardous because of an inability to compete legitimately at the breakdown.

A telling statistic was that they spent just 19 seconds in Georgia's 22 in the first half, while being stuck in their own for nearly nine minutes. Martin Johnson could not contain his frustration in the after-match media conference, but indiscipline has been a theme running through his team's last five matches, starting with the Twickenham warm-up against Wales.

England have given away 65 penalties in those Tests and in only one, against Argentina in the first group game, have they been awarded more penalties than they have conceded. That was not the case in the first hour of that match.

"It is an area we have to look at closely," said the prop Matt Stevens, who was the culprit for three of the first five penalties against England. "We are trying to be as white as we can but clearly we have to work harder. We cannot afford to go into the knockout stage known as a team that concedes numerous penalties because it could be the difference between staying in and going out if referees watch us more closely than the opposition."

England ran the kick-off from their own 22, something they are unlikely to do once they reach the knockouts, and moving away from the comfortingly familiar would have caused them far more grief against a side more accomplished than spirited Georgia, whose normally reliable goal-kicker, Merab Kvirikashvili, missed five of his six penalty attempts.

"We did not stick to our gameplan," said the wing Delon Armitage. "We know we are better than that. We tried to get the ball wide, but we lost possession and gave away too many penalties. We have to pick it up against Romania."

Even though England made the perfect start when Shontayne Hape scored a try after three minutes, their inability to hold on to the ball when attacking from deep left them exposed at the breakdown and they conceded penalties rather than allowing Georgia quick possession.

They had a player sent to the sin-bin for the second consecutive match, this time the hooker Dylan Hartley following the same trail as his fellow front-rower, Dan Cole, who saw yellow against Argentina. They were fortunate that the referee, Jonathan Kaplan, did not have a lower tolerance threshold.

"Rugby is a team sport and if we are making mistakes it is because we are not working hard enough," said the No8, James Haskell. "We are giving away too many penalties. We are scrambling around in rucks and it is not acceptable."

The wing Chris Ashton, who scored two of England's six tries, which were shared among the three-quarters, said the team needed to back their defence and not worry about opponents recycling the ball at the breakdown.

"We need to tighten up because we will not get away with it against teams like Australia and New Zealand," he said. "We have to keep hold of the ball and we have to stop giving away silly penalties. There is no need to keep getting penalised. We have to back our defence and we have to learn from this."

Ashton marked his first try with his trademark swallow-dive celebration. It was his first try for England since scoring four in the Six Nations match against Italy last February and he admitted he had got carried away. "It was not the right time to do it because the game was messy," he said. "I was happy to get the try but there were other things that needed concentrating on."